Next of Kin
by mosylu
Summary: With Caitlin in the hospital, Cisco and Barry discover that her mom blames them for everything that's wrong in her daughter's life. She's barred them from visiting, and isn't above siccing hospital security on them if they try to get in to see Caitlin. Psssh. Like they're gonna let that stop them. Light Killervibe sweetness.


(A/N) Written before 3.05 aired so forgive any inaccuracies in the details.

* * *

As he walked back into the hospital with a backpack over one shoulder, Cisco spotted Caitlin's mom, striding out the front. He broke into a sprint, yelling, "Hey! Dr. Tannhauser! Hey, wait up! Is she awake? Can we see her?"

Barry, with his longer legs, kept up even at non-meta speeds. "Yeah! We brought some stuff - "

Caitlin's mom stopped. "Yes, she's awake. No, you can't see her."

Cisco blinked. "What? Is she that bad still?" No, no, no. He never should have left. But the doctor he'd talked to had said she'd make a full recovery, and Barry had promised they'd be back ASAP, which to be fair, he'd delivered on -

"No," she said. "I've given the staff instructions that you're not to be allowed within three floors of my daughter's room, and if you do get even that close, security will escort you out."

"What?" they both yelled at once.

"She's our friend," Cisco shouted.

"You can't stop us from - "

"She's an _adult_ \- "

"She's our _friend!"_

"You. Shut. Up. Both of you."

They both went still and silent. Whether it was the reminder of Caitlin in the older woman's voice, or just the fact that Caitlin had learned it from somewhere, it felt like she'd reached out and grabbed them both by the throat.

"You have no right to act insulted when it's your fault she's in here."

Cisco felt his stomach tie itself in knots. "I - she - "

"You two have been destroying her life for years and it's going to stop right now. Caitlin is one of the most brilliant and talented scientific minds I've ever seen, and she should be, because I started her early. But she's thrown it all away on Star Labs. She hasn't published anything in three years. _Three years._ Not a paper, not a study, not so much as a literature review."

"Look, our research is sort of - "

She trampled right over his words. "I've gotten her interview after interview - universities, think tanks, highly prestigious research labs. Care to guess how many she's actually shown up for? One. At Mercury Labs, and she only lasted six months before she was back at your dead-end crackpot shop."

"Crackpot?" Barry said indignantly.

"Yes! Crackpot. Studying freaks day in and day out without anything to show for it. And that's where she met that shady Jay - he _said_ he was a scientist, but I certainly couldn't find any publications or research under his name. She's lucky he didn't steal her identity or something."

Cisco and Barry exchanged looks.

"And now this? You work her to the point of collapse and the Flash has to rush her to the hospital. It's the last straw. You and that place have ruined her life in every way possible, including actually putting it in danger."

Her voice shook, and Cisco could have sworn he spotted the sheen of tears in her eyes. He swallowed hard.

Caitlin had been feeling off for days, and instead of insisting that she go home and rest, he'd given in when she wanted to stay at work and power through what she thought was a bout of food poisoning. Cisco wasn't surprised that Caitlin's mom blamed him. He blamed himself.

Then she said, "So, no. You cannot see her. I forbid it."

His sympathy evaporated. "You _forbid_ it? Doc, I got news for you, the Middle Ages are way over - "

Dr. Tannhauser spoke over him. "My daughter is going to turn her life around. She's going to get a job with some actual prestige to it. She's going to stop squandering her brain. She's going to start giving back to the scientific world. And she's going to drop the two of you before you waste any more of her life with some misguided loyalty to a dead man."

Whether she meant Ronnie or Wells, Cisco didn't know, and he didn't much care either. "Look, I heard all about your plans for her, and guess what? Caitlin's an adult. She makes her own choices, and - "

But clearly she was done listening to them. "Security!" she shouted. "Security!"

"Um," Barry muttered as two burly guards came around the corner, looking like they were about to steal somebody's lunch money. "Whoa."

She pointed at them. "These are the two I notified you about. Remove them from the premises."

"Did the bigger one seriously just crack his knuckles?" Barry wondered in his ear.

Cisco was shaking out his hands, flexing his fingers. He didn't have his gauntlets, but he wasn't really all that concerned with accuracy right now. They were big enough that -

Then Barry grabbed the back of his jacket. "Okay," he said. "We don't want any trouble, fellas. We're going right now."

"What?" Cisco squirmed. "Dude, I can take 'em - "

"Ix-nay on the ibe-Vay," Barry muttered. He grinned brightly at the security guards. "I swear! We're outta here. No trouble, guys." He dragged Cisco back out the hospital entrance, down the street, and around the corner.

When he stopped, Cisco wrenched himself out of his friend's grasp. "What the hell, man?"

Barry was peering back around the corner. "I can't believe I'm the one talking about discretion right now. You got that backpack on good? Both shoulders?"

"What are you, my mom?"

"Look, if that bag flies off at six hundred miles an hour, it'll blow a hole in four successive walls. And that's if we're lucky."

"We're sneaking in?" Cisco asked, yanking the second strap over his shoulder and shrugging until it settled.

Barry just gave him a look. "Ready?"

He was never really ready to get carted anywhere at the speed of sound, but he nodded, swallowing and ordering his stomach to behave itself this time.

 _Whoosh_ , went the world around him, and Cisco squeezed his eyes shut.

They stopped in an empty hallway, peering around the corner before strolling around it all, _What, us? We didn't get persona non grata'd. Naw, we totes belong here._

Caitlin was in the second room on the left, in a bed that looked far too big for her, dressed in one of those hospital gowns that never fit anybody right. She was whiter than the sheet, her hair limp and flat, surrounded by a tangle of tubes and wires that looked as if they were draining her dry.

She stirred, her lashes fluttering, and mumbled, "Mom, I don't want - " Her eyes got all the way open and she stopped mid-sentence. "Cisco," she breathed, a slow smile pushing at the corners of her mouth.

"Heyyyyy," he whispered back, feeling an answering smile spread over his face. Because as pale and drawn as she was, as tiny as she looked in that bed, as scary as all the beeping machines and tentacular tubing were -

It didn't hold a candle to how awful she'd looked that morning when she'd clutched her stomach and collapsed at his feet.

At least now she wasn't whimpering with pain, and her eyes weren't filled with fear.

"Barry?" she said, spotting him. "You came too?"

"Hiya," Barry said. "Wouldn't miss it. How you feeling?"

She scrunched up her face. "Like my appendix ruptured and they had to open up my abdominal cavity to clean it out."

"Accurate," Cisco said. "Also, gross. Eww."

She giggled, then winced and put her hand on her abdomen.

"Sorry! Sorry."

"It's okay."

He moved toward the bed, but she held up her hand to stop him. "Did the - the power blocker work? During the surgery?" She touched the spot on the side of her neck where they'd implanted a tiny subdermal gadget three weeks before. The scar was pink and fading.

"Perfectly," Cisco assured her. "You didn't drop so much as a degree. Flying colors. Trust the tech."

She sighed with relief.

He'd spent her entire surgery with an app open on his phone that showed him the status of her core temperature. He'd kept a panicked eye on it, arguing in whispers with Barry about what they would do if the blocker suddenly failed and her core temp dropped to Killer Frost zones. They'd both seen what she could do in controlled conditions, awake, locked into a heavily insulated cell, whenever she agreed to disable the blocker and get some practice in. What her powers could have done, with her unconscious, didn't bear thinking about.

How they would have explained the sudden disappearance of an appendectomy patient mid-surgery, and who they would have found to patch her up again without getting flash-frozen, was thankfully a moot point.

"Will it hurt if I give you a hug?" he asked.

"Probably, but I'd like one anyway."

He hugged her as gently as possible, resting his hands featherlight on her shoulders, making a no-contact circle out of his arms, just touching his cheek to her hair. She smelled like medicine and sickness and things he didn't want to think about. Her hands briefly clenched in his shirt.

Outside, there was a sudden babble, and Barry said, "Uh - I should - be right back, okay?" He disappeared.

Cisco leaned back to look at her. "So, it's all good? They took out that nasty appendix and it's all squeaky clean in there?" He waved a hand at her midsection.

She nodded. "They've got me on enough antibiotics to kill every microflora that ever passed through my gut."

"What about pain meds? They gave you pain meds, right?"

"Oh, yeah." She gave her head a little shake. "Forgive me if I get a little spacey. They gave me the good stuff."

"Nice."

"So what's in the backpack?" she asked, touching the strap over his shoulder.

"Oh yeah!" He pulled it off and set it on the chair next to the bed. "Caitlin care package, special delivery."

"Care package? You brought me presents?"

"Yep." He pulled things out like Santa unloading his sack. "You gotcher tablet with Netflix, and I left Parks and Rec all cued up. You gotcher iPod and headphones so you can catch up on all your boring public-radio podcasts. You gotcher e-reader and I synced it before we left your apartment. You got a new book on there, so that's exciting - "

"New Courtney Milan!" she squeaked, hugging it.

"And in case you just wanted comfort reads, I grabbed two of your most beat-up paperbacks, so we got _Flowers from the Storm_ with Fabio-tastic cover and _Lord of Scoundrels_." He wiggled his eyebrows.

She bit her lip, clearly trying not to laugh and pull at her stitches.

"Also, thank Iris for this, we grabbed your makeup kit from your desk, plus hairbrush and dry shampoo from your apartment."

Caitlin's face fell, and she touched her hair. "Oh. It looks awful, doesn't it?"

"Nah, no way, it looks fabulous!"

She fixed him with a beady eye. "You've never said my hair looks fabulous even when it did."

He sighed. "All right, okay, I can't lie. It's pretty bad."

"Ohhh … "

"But this will take care of that." Mostly. Enough for a lady in the hospital, anyway.

She stroked her hands gently across the cover of _Lord of Scoundrels_. "Thank you."

"Hey, you're gonna be in here for awhile. Got to keep you entertained."

She started to say something, then looked at the door, her eyebrows scrunching up. "Why are there two giant guards manhandling Barry?"

Cisco whipped his head around. The two security moose had found them, and there was a nurse in purple scrubs sticking her finger in Barry's face. He hopped up. "Whoa, well, funny story about that - we sorta got PNG'd from your room. Wacky mix-up, I'm sure we'll laugh about it later, but I gotta - yeah - " He bolted out of the room, trying to think of a way to boom them while being discreet about it and not knocking out any important medical equipment.

"Look, guys, we're her friends," Barry wheedled, and it was going about as well as it ever did when Barry tried to be pals with people who could tie him in a half-hitch.

"We have strict instructions to keep you out," the nurse said. Her name badge read Asheleigh. "You need to leave."

"From her _mom_ ," Cisco said. "She doesn't even work here!"

Heads were poking out of rooms and another nurse with the unmistakable air of Lady in Charge was striding down the hall from the nurse's station.

"You'll have to leave now," one of the moose said. "If we have to ask again, we'll be calling the police."

"No, seriously, she wants us here. Ask her! She's awake and everything."

"He's right," a weak voice said.

They all turned around to see Caitlin pushing herself up in bed, her face scrunched up in pain. Cisco dashed back into the room, dimly aware of Moose 1 and Moose 2 following, along with Barry and Asheleigh. "Caitlin! Abdominal surgery, remember?" He tucked his shoulder under her arm to support her, praying he didn't dislodge any important tubes or wires.

"Hard to forget," she muttered, easing against him. She raised her voice again. "I don't know what my mother said, but she's mistaken. These are the people I was asking for earlier. They're my friends and I want them here."

"Your mother said you'd be confused, Dr. Snow," the nurse said. "She's given strict orders that she's the only visitor permitted."

In a voice like winter wind, Caitlin said, "Are. You. Serious."

Cisco looked up and met Barry's eyes, and they both grinned.

"I'm not confused, and I've made my wishes more than clear. I don't care who my mother knows or taught or published with. If you keep anyone _except_ my mother out of my room, I'm going to remove myself from this hospital, march right across town to Central City Picture News, and sit down with the best reporter they have to tell her all about how Mercy General is treating an adult woman of perfectly sound mind as if she's _non compos mentis._ And trust me, that reporter will be very interested."

Even the security moose were caught, frozen, nailed to the floor by the sheer force of her rage, hours out from invasive surgery. Cisco kinda suspected he had little puffy cartoon hearts floating around his head.

In the doorway, the second nurse nodded. "You heard the lady. They can stay."

"But - " Asheleigh protested weakly. "Dr. Troy said - "

The second nurse, whose nametag declared her Jen, gave her a long, cool look. "Dr. Troy is head of Patient Care, and it's not doing this patient one bit of good having to fight to see her - " She paused and looked from Cisco to Barry. "Her friends. You heard her. She's an adult, she's out of surgery and awake, and from what I've seen, she's actually a lot less confused than most would be under that amount of pain meds. It's her call who she gets to see. You want to shuffle the blame, drop it in my lap. That's fine by me." She turned to the guards. "Now shoo."

They shooed, looking pretty put out. Asheleigh mouthed objections like a goldfish, until one more hard look from Jen sent her out of the room.

"And you, Dr. Snow, will be lucky if you didn't pop a stitch, yelling at us like that. Boys, give us a moment, will you?" Jen nudged Cisco along, helped Caitlin lie down again, and pulled the privacy curtain.

Cisco loitered along with Barry, listening while Caitlin got gently scolded and checked over. The tones of the nurse's voice didn't spike with alarm, so he relaxed.

The curtain swished open again. "Visiting hours end at eight," she announced. "You two can stay until then." She turned to Caitlin. "Just to double-check, Dr. Snow. You do not want your mother admitted?"

Caitlin shook her head firmly. "And I'll call and tell her so myself." She grimaced. "You'll probably have to deal with her anyway, and I'm sorry about that, but she won't be able to say she didn't know."

"Oh, I can handle her, just as long as I've got your go-ahead." She headed off for the nurse's station, looking a little smug, possibly that she got to tell Dr. Troy go screw himself and his high-handed crony's orders.

Caitlin tugged her hospital gown up where it was slipping down her shoulder. "So, did I miss anything exciting today?"

"Nah, you were all the excitement," Barry said. "We basically hung around here all day."

"All day? What about - " she lowered her voice. "The Flash?"

"Iris and Wally covered. They hung out at Star Labs listening to the police scanner."

"Oh," she said softly. "That was so nice of them."

"I think they got a kick out of it," Barry said. "Brother-sister crime-fighting duo." He laughed to himself, as if at a private joke.

"Did anything happen?" Cisco thought to ask. Barry had zipped back to check in a couple of times.

"Um, cat up a tree, maybe? Wally was sort of disappointed."

"Man, cushy day," Cisco said, shaking his head.

"Right?"

Barry's phone rang, and he glanced at the screen before answering. "Heyyyy," he cooed, and mouthed, _Iris,_ unnecessarily. "We're at the hospital. Yeah. She's awake, we're hanging out - what?" He lowered the phone. "Want to talk to Iris for a moment?"

Caitlin held out her hand for his phone. "Hi," she said into it. "Oh, okay, considering." She made a face. "Yeah, not bad leftover potato salad after all. Well, they removed it entirely, so I don't think it'll happen again - uh-huh. Uh-huh." She looked meek. "No. I know. What? Well, Cisco brought me a care package, so I'm okay for tonight. That would be great, actually. Ask Cisco, he has a spare key for my place. All right. Thanks - and thanks for covering at Star Labs." She listened for a moment, smiled, and handed the phone back.

Barry snuck out to spare them his kissy noises on the phone, leaving them alone.

"I can't believe my mother did that," Caitlin said. "I'm so sorry."

"She overreacted, maybe," Cisco said, trying to be fair. "I mean, she was pretty freaked out. We all were. Maybe I shouldn't've called her, though."

"No, I'm glad you did. She's still my mom, and it's good she was here. But banning you, that was completely over the line. She needs to understand that."

Cisco looked down at his hands, tracing one finger along the wrinkles and folds of the blanket. "She was talking about how you were going to, uh, dump us and fix your screwed-up life."

Her hand covered his. "My life is not screwed up."

He snorted.

"My life is not _that_ screwed up. But it would be, without you in it."

It made him smile, but he said, "Even without, like, publishing papers, and research, and getting respect from the scientific community - ?"

"Those things would be nice," she acknowledged, "but I don't need them to be happy. My mother's priorities haven't matched mine for a long time. She may have big plans, but they're not my plans. Okay?"

He looked up and she smiled at him. After a moment, he smiled back. "You really gonna ban her from visiting?"

"Oh, yes," she said grimly. "She'll be lucky if I talk to her at all for the rest of the year."

"Hey," he said. "I get that you're pretty pissed at her. I'm not what you'd call her biggest fan at the moment myself. But don't cut her out completely, okay? You - " he cleared his throat. "Um, you never know what could happen."

She squeezed his hand. "I know. I do. But, Cisco, my relationship with my mother is going to start being on my terms."

He nodded. "Fair enough."

* * *

Outside, Jen gave Barry a funny look when he finished his phone call and leaned against the nurse's station.

"Just giving them a little more time," he explained, waving his hand at Caitlin's room, and the two heads leaning close together.

She'd finished her rounds, Asheleigh was off sulking somewhere, and she was curious as hell. "So - are they - what are they?"

Barry frowned at her, then his eyes cleared. "You mean like relationship-wise?"

"What other wise could I mean?"

He considered them. "I dunno. They're - _friends_ doesn't seem to cover it, exactly. It doesn't run deep enough. It's like they have a piece of themselves, just set aside for each other."

She nodded. "I have somebody like that."

He glanced over. "Yeah?"

"Mhm." She held up her left hand. "I married her."

He grinned down at his phone. "Seems like the thing to do."

FINIS


End file.
